Dean's weight
by Weasel-Scarecrow Luvrs
Summary: My take on Dean's mindset and mental/emotional state during season 9. Told from Dean's perspective but pretty reflective. Check it out if that kind of thing interests you :)
1. Dean's weight

**Author's Note:**** Alright, well this is my first attempt at a Supernatural drabble so constructive criticisim is of course welcome. Please not the constructive part of that statement before leaving a review ****. This is my take on Dean's mental state during the end of season 9. Enjoy and please let me know what you think by leaving a review! –Scarecrow**

**Disclaimer:**** I do not own Supernatural or any of the characters, they are all Eric Kripke's beautiful brain children. **

Dean couldn't remember a time when this weight hadn't existed on his shoulders or when the world didn't seem to be in constant shades of gray and black. He knew there must have been a time when smiles reached his eyes and his first instinct before going outside wasn't to tuck his pistol into the waist band of his jeans. He was sure of it because he had a picture of him and his mom taken ages ago that showed a nearly unrecognizable innocence upon his face. Shoulders not weighed down by the world and no dark depths lingering in the very back of his eyes that reflected the state of his soul. Instead there was a wide smile, innocent eyes, and strong little shoulders that had no idea the weight they would eventually carry.

Four years of innocence had been quickly eradicated by nearly two decades of hunting the evilest creatures to stalk the earth and experiencing unimaginable tragedies almost constantly. Had been stripped from his very soul during four decades of hell and by performing acts that went against his very self for the sake of his own sanity. Dean had allowed the darkness in when he broke under Alistair's gentle knife and no matter how often or how much he tried to convince himself that he had bottled that darkness up and repaired the cracks, Dean knew he continued to collect more with each day he lived. Could feel the cracks widening to form crevices and then simply pathways into his soul through which flowed the very darkest aspects of humanity.

He had convinced himself that it was all worth it. He helped people. Did more good than bad and maybe that would help to ease his sins, but it never seemed to work that way. Every time he was sure he was doing the right thing, someone was always hurt. It was becoming too much. Dean had very few people who actually meant anything to him left and yet each time they were around him, it was like they were playing Russian roulette. Spin the wheel, let's see who is going to die this time out of the limited supply of people whom Dean Winchester loves. Just so long as Dean lives and continues to suffer. Sam wasn't even immune to the Dean Winchester effect and Dean had lost him several times. Too many times. Had nearly lost him to Death but although Dean had saved him from dying; He had still lost his brother. Add another name to the list of people that Dean Winchester had personally killed with the best of intentions.

So that was how he had gotten here, in this bathroom, staring at the blood in the sink. Eyes, a startling green, moving up to the mirror and lingering first on the blood at the corner of his mouth before moving to the mark on his forearm. However unassuming the mark might look, Dean hoped that maybe this would be it. Maybe this mark would be the key to saving his important people and the world…and maybe, just maybe, it would be the key to finally ending his exhausting existence. Just maybe, the mark would kill him for good. After all, Sam didn't seem to want him here and he was the only reason Dean had been continuing to fight, to hold on.

The black pit in the bottom of his stomach was growing and he could hear Sam approaching the bathroom; probably wondering what was taking so long since they had a case. Dean reached out mechanically and turned on the tap. Spitting into the stream of water to clear any lingering blood from his mouth, Dean wiped his lips clean and proceeded to wash his hands. Sam might no longer want Dean to be his brother but it would take more than a simple statement to stop decades of protecting him and Dean would not let him see what bad shape he was in. Dean meet his gaze in the mirror and tried to clear the murky depths so he could go on playing the quirky, jokester in front of his brother. What Sam didn't know wouldn't kill him, not this time, because this one was meant only for Dean.

Turning to dry his hands just as his brother pushed through the door, Dean looked up with a false smile that Sam wouldn't catch because he never had, and cracked a joke about two men in a tiny bathroom. Sam simply cracked a smile and told him to hurry up before he left without him. Dean said he wouldn't dare and Sam ducked back out of the bathroom chuckling. Meeting his own gaze in the mirror one final time, Dean saw only their black depths and wondered what Sam saw every time he looked at him.


	2. Sam's signs

Sam didn't know how he could have missed the signs. That's really the only thoughts that race through his mind as he drives back to the bunker with his brother's broken, empty body in the Impala's back seat. How had he not noticed that his brother was quickly plunging off of a cliff that he would not be able to drag him back up from. Had his act really been that convincing or had he really been so angry at his brother to notice that Dean was falling apart. Dean had known almost instantly when Sam had been hiding the effects of the trials and yet he had failed his brother when Dean needed him the most. Worst of all, Sam knew that his rejection of Dean's actions after Dean had literally done everything he could think of to save him when he was dying was what had set Dean off that cliff. What had caused him to plummet so low that by the time Sam realized what was happening, Dean was dying in his arms.

Dean had always been Sam's rock. His fall back place whenever things got too hard or too deep. Yet when his brother had need the same from him, Sam had pushed him away. Had said to his face that he wouldn't have gone to the same lengths for Dean. Sam might as well have placed that mark on Dean's arm and not Cain, because the one who had cause the chain reaction that led to an empty corpse in the back seat was him. His own blind righteousness. His own anger. His own stupidity. Sam was the only one to blame for the fact that he was carrying a corpse to the only place that had become a safe place for them.

Sam kept going over and over Dean's actions and looking for clue-ins and they were deeply hidden but they were there. The strained smiles that never reached the too distant eyes. The shoulders that had always been so strong, beginning to slope in towards his chest. His movements being just a fraction of a second slower than usual as if Dean wasn't sure if he wanted to stop the creatures from ripping him apart. They were all so obvious now to Sam and he couldn't understand what had blinded them to him before. Then his eyes landed on the army ranger that was still stuck in that one space in the rear driver side door and Sam knew. Knew what had kept him from seeing the deteriorating state of his brother. It wasn't the anger at his choice to keep Sam alive or even the distance that Sam had been striving to put between them. No, it was the admiration and belief that nothing could ever take down Dean Winchester. His blind faith in his brother's abilities and the hero like reverence that Sam still clung to from childhood for Dean, had kept him from seeing his brother destroy himself.

Though Sam supposed it made sense in a twisted and dark way. The only thing with the power to destroy Dean was Dean himself. Nothing else had the power to destroy him except, Sam amended thinking of how things he had said to Dean had literally shattered the man on several occasions, Sam. So Sam and himself had been Dean's downfall but Sam was determined that he would also be one of the reasons that Dean would return. If Sam couldn't chose to die on his own terms without his brother dragging him back, then neither could Dean. Besides, the world needed more men like Dean, the man was the best person Sam knew and that wasn't an exaggeration.

We've seen sorrow and tragedies too awful for words. Fought creatures that are the incarnation of evil. Lost our mother. Lost our Father. Lost Bobby. Lost Ellen, Jo, and Ash. Lost Kevin. I lost Jess and you lost Lisa and Ben. We have both almost lost or lost each other one way or another. We cannot survive alone, Sam decided. We have to stick together and he would bring his brother back. Once he had done that he would work on fixing the damage he had done to the man he considered his best friend but until then, he would focus on ignoring the fact that his brother's cooling corpse was in the back seat. Instead, he would imagine that he would see Dean, alive and whole, just as soon as he arrived at the bunker.


End file.
